INDIA'S FIRST Listed & HIGHEST CREDIT RATED GOLD LOAN COMPANY

An outcome of the phenomenal success of the Company has been the meteoric rise in its shareholder wealth. In November 2010, a leading business publication ?Business Today? compiled a ranking of Indian companies in terms of greatest wealth creation for its shareholders. The magazine had given two separate rankings, considering shareholder wealth creation over a period of five years and over ten years. Manappuram General Finance and Leasing Ltd. was ranked No.1 in both the lists.

With shareholders reaping spectacular rewards, Chairman Mr. V.P. Nandakumar, felt a strong desire to go beyond the day-to-day preoccupations of the business, and look at extra-ordinary ways to share the group?s success and reach out to the wider community around us. The idea was to intervene with our resources and commitment in ways that would enrich lives, and make a meaningful difference to their futures.

The Manappuram Group establishes the Manappuram Foundation at Valapad, to give concrete shape to its commitment to CSR.

The Foundation?s initial goals reflect the vision of the group?s Chairman?to give back substantially to the community in the Valapad area where he has spent the better part of his life and where, to this day, all the Manappuram group companies are firmly anchored. From its humble beginnings more than 60 years ago as a single branch outfit dealing in gold loans, to its present status as a corporate giant with nine group companies spanning diversified interests like Gold Loan, Jewellery, Asset Financing, Money Transfer, Insurance, Foreign Exchange, Healthcare etc., the group stands firmly rooted in Valapad. And this loyalty has been repaid over the years by the people of the area bestowing their deepest trust on the ?Manappuram? name. Today, it is fair to say that but for this trust as its foundation, Manappuram group would not be what it is.

The first mission taken up by the Foundation is an original plan to bring health care to the needy in the seven Panchayats constituting the Nattika Assembly constituency in Thrissur District. Though the government promotes the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and Universal Health Insurance (UHI) for below poverty line (BPL) families, they are largely unutilised because awareness levels are low and people at the margins are unable to pay their share of the policy premiums. Accordingly, the Manappuram Foundation worked in collaboration with the local MLA Mr.T.N. Pratapan to give shape to an original plan: ?Janaraksha - Manappuram Soujanya Arogya Insurance Scheme.? Here is an outline of the scheme.

Janaraksha Manappuram envisages free health insurance for all the 20,000 identified BPL families in the Nattika Assembly constituency. The policy covers their medical expenses under RSBY and UHI up to an annual limit of Rs.60,000, with ?cashless? treatment made available at some of the leading hospitals in Thrissur District. The policy covers almost all the common diseases including heart ailments and cancer, in addition to maternity care. In-patients in hospitals will be reimbursed for the services of a helper, at Rs.50 per day. The heads of the beneficiary families are additionally insured for a sum of Rs.75,000 against death due to accident. And in the event of death from cancer, the dependents are eligible for cash compensation of Rs.25,000 directly paid by the Foundation.

The premiums payable by the beneficiaries (Rs.200 per annum per family) will be funded entirely by the Manappuram Foundation, at a recurring annual cost of about Rs.40 lakhs.Finally, to ensure vigorous and unflagging implementation, the Foundation has set up a fully equipped office at the group?s Corporate Headquarters at Valapad. It is manned by trained social workers and psychiatric social workers taken on board especially for the purpose. In addition, family counselling centres and help-desks (serving as accessible contact points) have started functioning in all the seven Panchayats.

Yet another trail-blazing initiative under the auspices of Manappuram Foundation, this project aims at empowering the women from the BPL category of Nattika constituency. It will provide a platform to these women to organize themselves and to initiate and manage activities like group farming, poultry and dairy farming, rearing sheep, goats etc. The objective is to give to them a means of developing a sustainable income source, thereby leading to economic development of the family. The Foundation will help identified groups of women in planning and executing common activities that involve ownership and management of farming and related activities to generate income. Later, once the project becomes self-sustaining, these women will be guided and trained to become change agents, helping with the financial and social development of the entire community around them.

The Foundation?s activities are not meant to substitute for the regular welfare measures undertaken by the government. In fact, the main purpose is to supplement the efforts of the government, by filling in for some of the gaps and inconsistencies that arise even as the government tries its best. It is well recognised that government efforts have a large sweep and, sometimes, a tendency towards the ?one-size-fits-all? approach with pronounced limitations when it comes to the needs and concerns peculiar to a community or locality.

And it is here the Foundation seeks to be of particular relevance. By leveraging its close ties to the community, and by using the substantial resources made available to it, the Foundation will come up with many more of original initiatives, where the impact is both measured and effective.

In the next few years, Manappuram Foundation has plans to open an orphanage, a couple of day care centres, and several vocational training centres, to help the economically deprived sections in the area. Later on, the Foundation will expand its charitable activities throughout the state of Kerala, ultimately going on to cover the four southern states. In fact, a beginning has already been made in February 2011 in Bangalore where the Foundation has given away scholarships to poor students, liberal donations to schools and orphanages, and financial assistance to kidney, cancer and heart patients from poor families.